Papers Please: In Attacking Illegal Immigration, Arizona Transforms Itself To A Police State

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Well, you gotta figure that if crypto-fascist Sheriff Joe Arpaio loves it, and if it's authored by another neo-Nazi-loving guy, Sen. Russell Pearce, Arizona's newest legislative attempt to crack down on illegal immigration is probably not going to be very good law.

And indeed it is not:

Arizona lawmakers on Tuesday passed one of the toughest pieces of immigration-enforcement legislation in the country, which would make it a violation of state law to be in the U.S. without proper documentation.

It would also grant police the power to stop and verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being illegal.

... Under the measure, passed Tuesday by Arizona's lower house, after being passed earlier by the state Senate, foreign nationals are required to carry proof of legal residency.

Papers, please! You can hear the officers now.

From the L.A. Times report:

"It's beyond the pale," said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. "It appears to mandate racial profiling."

... Opponents ... raised the specter of officers untrained in immigration law being required to determine who is in the country legally. They noted that though the bill says race cannot solely be used to form a suspicion about a person's legality, it implicitly allows it to be a factor.

"A lot of U.S. citizens are going to be swept up in the application of this law for something as simple as having an accent and leaving their wallet at home," said Alessandra Soler Meetze, president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona.

Law enforcement officers are blanching as well. Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank remarked, "This sets law enforcement back 30 to 40 years."

As Mario Solis-Marich put it:

Arizona is the Alabama of the new century and Maricopa County is the new Selma. America and the world should boycott GOP Governor Jan Brewer’s red state.

I know I will. Of course, Arizona was already the subject of a travelers' advisory by Arthur Frommer over the gun-toting nuts who show up at presidential political rallies there.

Isn't it odd, really, how these right-wingers complain about government tyranny and how liberals are imposing a police state, yaddah yaddah yaddah, yet in the states where they have full control, they eagerly institute a police state themselves?